Expert Advice

         
Expert Advice
by Sonia Suedfeld

“Dear Grant the Gardener,” were the only words I had typed in all the time I had been sitting at my son’s computer. At least two hours, maybe more. All alone with the ticking of the bedside clock and the rustle of the wind in the leaves of the maple outside the window.
         
Four lousy words. Of course, the irony of my situation had not escaped my notice. I, Clara Polansky, might have been born the fourth daughter of poor Polish farmers who had immigrated to New York in the sixties and I might not have much of a formal education by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew irony when it came up and bit me in the ass. 
         
And the irony of my situation was this: for the first time in my life, the tables had turned on me. Here I was, an expert turning to another for help.
         
For almost a decade now, I had been “Clara the Cleaning Lady”, writing a syndicated column that appeared in several of the country’s major daily newspapers each week. Like ‘Dear Abby’. But unlike Abby or her sister Ann Landers, who tackled relationship and etiquette issues, I dealt only with housekeeping problems in and around the house. The environmental way.
         
Ten years ago, I sold a thriving cleaning business and naturally turned to giving advice as the next step in my career when I started receiving letters from people, mostly women, who wanted help tackling housekeeping problems in and around the house, using only products that are safe for the environment.
         
After my column began appearing regularly, the letters increased from a few to a few dozen each week. It seemed a lot of women (and a few men) had questions about cleaning furniture and floors, removing gum from clothing and hair, or even repelling insects and rodents around their homes. Young and old or somewhere in between, thousands of people wrote to ask for advice and answers to all kinds of cleaning and household problems over the years. When all else failed, people knew they could always count on Clara the Cleaning Lady.
         
Most of the problems were common. Nothing a little baking soda (my favourite) or a quarter cup of vinegar or even a dab of peanut butter couldn’t fix. Grass stains, wine spills, soap scum, rust and mildew, scuff marks, gummy hair, I had dealt with every housekeeping problem imaginable.
         
And then some.
         
You see, every once in a while a letter would arrive from a woman somewhere in the world with a problem that would never be made public and that I would never write about in my column. Problems that gave new meaning to the phrase ‘cleaning house’, if you know what I mean.
         
Like this one from a lady in Florida, written by hand on flower-edged paper:
         
Dear Clara,

Help! My husband’s such a bastard! I don’t know why I married him - I must have been delusional! Not only does he expect me to be at his beck and call 24/7, but he keeps track of what I spend and won’t let me have any friends. He calls me names and makes me clean the shower tiles with a toothbrush. He forces me to give him a massage while he watches baseball on TV and he pushes me around when he drinks too much, which is often. It’s been four years of this. Last Friday when he was getting ready to go out with his buddies, I whacked him with his own baseball bat. I don’t remember how many times but it must have been a lot because now there’s an incredible mess on the carpet. The problem is I don’t know what to use to clean it up. Would you know of some way to get bloodstains out of a carpet? I got a new boyfriend and don’t want him to see my messy bedroom.
         
Horrified in Horton Hills
         
It pulled at my heart strings, this one. And naturally, I tried my best to help out with some thoughtful advice. Privately, of course. Never publicly. No one but me would ever find out about this problem.
         
Dear Horrified,
         
A little baking soda (or a lot, depending on the size of the stain) mixed with some warm water to create a paste should do the trick. Rub the stain, then blot gently with a cloth. Repeat until the stain is gone. If this doesn’t  work, I suggest you move the furniture around to cover the stain or consider putting in a new carpet.
         
Good luck,
         
Clara
         
I rarely if ever heard back from my letter writers, and for the most part, this did not bother me. But the special ones, like the next letter from a woman up in Canada somewhere, always made me wonder how it all turned out.
         
Clara,
         
I need help! My kitchen drain is plugged up something bad but I don’t want to use any chemicals because we’re on a septic system. But before you offer your usual advice, I should let you know that it is not food or paper but little bits and pieces of my mother-in-law that are plugging up the sink. She came to visit last year and then decided to stay indefinitely, and after all these months of her nagging, I just couldn’t stand it any more. When my husband left to go out of town last week, I wasted no time. I baked her favourite, lasagne with my ‘special’ tomato sauce, and when she breathed her last, I chopped her up. The big bits I buried in the bush behind my house, the little bits I tried to flush down the toilet or dump down the drain. But this wasn’t such a good idea because now the drain is plugged up and all the usual remedies don’t work. Please help!
         
Desperate in Dawson City
         
Such a plight, such a cry for help! I dropped everything I’d been doing and started researching like mad. It took me the better part of an afternoon, but I think I came up with the perfect solution.
         
Dear Desperate,
         
Baking soda and vinegar are miracle workers around the house. These two common kitchen staples should make short work of unplugging your clogged drains. First, pour ½ cup of baking soda down the drain, then 1 cup of vinegar. When it starts to foam, flush with boiling water. Repeat if necessary.
         
Hope this helps,
         
Clara
         
Fortunately, most problems were very easy to deal with. Even the most tenacious, like this one tormenting a woman up in Alaska:
         
Dear Cleaning Lady,
         
I am a big fan of yours and wonder if you have any tips on how to remove a bad odour from a car? I finally got around to moving my husband’s dead girlfriend’s body out from the basement where I had stashed it after pushing her down the rickety stairs when she came over for tea last week. It was hard work, but I finally got her body up those stairs and into the trunk of my car. Then I drove to a forest several towns away and buried her in a shallow grave. The problem now is that my car stinks with that ‘corpse’ smell and  no amount of air freshener or those little pine cones that you hang from the rear view mirror seem to help. Any tips or ideas you can send my way would be greatly appreciated.
         
Anxious in Alaska
         
Having done my research, it took me just a couple of minutes to dash off a few fool-proof suggestions that I enclosed in a personal letter.
         
Dear Anxious,
         
Even stubborn odours like the one you are dealing with can’t stand a chance against the miracle of baking soda and a couple of fabric softener sheets. This may sound simple, but it really works. First, sprinkle generous amounts of baking soda inside the trunk of your car to absorb the odour, then place a few fabric softener sheets inside the trunk and interior of your car. This is guaranteed to work.
         
Best of luck,
         
Clara
         
I had no idea if any of my solutions and suggestions had ever worked, but I had kept each of those three letters and a few more like them in a private collection I kept locked in a desk drawer. I would take them out to read from time to time and always, they would bring tears to my eyes.
         
I brushed at moist eyes now as I put aside the letters and turned back to the document up on the screen of the computer. “Dear Grant the Gardener,” I read slowly and I thought I knew now what those women had been feeling when they’d sat down to write me those letters I had kept all these years in my secret collection. They’d been pouring their hearts out to me, looking not only for answers to their cleaning problems but for a little understanding and compassion along the way. They had trusted me.
         
And they had felt the way they had signed their letters: horrified, desperate, anxious. I was feeling all three emotions at the same time as I turned my own problem over and over in my mind, for what seemed like an eternity. It wasn’t easy being an expert looking for advice.
         
In the end, and after much soul-searching, this is what I finally wrote:
         
Dear Grant the Gardener,
         
I decided to put in a garden in my backyard. I carefully measured and took out the lawn, but when I started turning the soil I unearthed what look like old animal bones. My question to you is what can I do or use to accelerate the decomposition of the bones so that I can continue with my garden? It needs to be environmentally-friendly and safe because my wish is to grow tomatoes and beans and squash for my family’s consumption. Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.
         
Clueless in Clayton
         
The old animal bones were actually human, and fresh ones, but Grant the Gardener did not need to know that I had beaten my nosy housekeeper to death and buried her in the backyard. Of course, I’d had no choice. I had forgiven her the occasional theft of silverware or jewellery over the years, but the letters? My precious letters in my very own private collection? Never.
         
And I, unlike my special letter writers, did not need a little understanding or compassion from anyone, let alone Grant the Gardener.
         
The only thing the advice expert needed now was some expert advice.